For Christmas we decided to drive down from Miri to Kuching and stay at one of our favourite hotels - the Basaga. It's an old colonial house away from the touristy riverfront with beautiful gardens which make it a green oasis amid the mouldy concrete of Kuching, which oddly means "cat" in Malay.
On Christmas day morning I went for my customary run, which took me along the riverfront as far as this culvert and then inland back in the direction of the Basaga. On the way I passed St Thomas' Cathedral, Anglican I think. It was packed with worshippers, including an overspill standing on the steps outside, all singing carols. All these people devoted to a church that originated in England made me feel a little embarrassed to be an English atheist. If they had known I guess most of them would have been terribly shocked.
Mostly in this society I keep my beliefs to myself, not because I feel scared or intimidated by people's faith, be it Christianity, Islam or whatever, but because I don't want to hurt their feelings or have them worry about my soul. To do anything else, outside my home culture, feels like bad manners.
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